Looking through a box – tiny hole [think pin]
All the way inside – white, black, red – only little world
Magnified and distorted, bending of ligh
I could reach in and pull myself in and live there
But I can’t, so I’ll just
Eye wide open against the glass
Side to side and up and down
A little tiny world I created
But it’s static and I know it’s not real
There isn’t even any pretend people in there
Just some walls.
It’s simply something I can see out of the corner of my eye
You know, when you think you’re seeing it but you turn around and – voila, it’s not..
And then I turn back and it’s there
Compelling me to notice it
Opaque, tugging for my attention
Look at me, look at me, look at me
But I can’t because it’s not actually there
It’s almost dormant
But when I try to switch of
It’s look at me look at me worry about me worry please worry
It’s entirely fallible logic locked away in a huge piece of amber
I know it might not seem much
Just a tiny fragment of a memory in a box
Not even wrapped up, just sat there lonely with some old documents
The ones that smell of old books, of long-gone DNA, of happiness, of sadness
But it counts for a lot, more than I bargained for in fact
It’s like time is looping in on itself, and I can sense on the object your touch, your breath, your thoughts the last time you touched it
I think about how you probably weren’t aware it was the last time
And yet here we are, we fast forward, still frame like a movie
Me opening the box and holding this little treasure
It’s not valuable, there’s no exchange for currency
Even if there was, I’m not selling
I don’t want to hold it too long, I don’t want its magic to evaporate into the air
Into the air, out of sight, into the universe until it’s just microscopic specks of your memory
Nope, I just want to hold this tight, be cocooned by your memories and legacy
I wish you knew that although you’re gone, it’s these little pieces of you and your life that linger and keep you alive in my heart and mind and soul
I wish
It all feels very, very sudden.
Like when there’s a storm, when it’s raining and raining and raining and it suddenly stops.
I’ve got all these years and years of memories of you.
To be honest, they’re slipping away like sand through my fingers.
I felt you move on to another stage today.
I could see it in the sky and I could sense it in the air.
I can sense it in the ground underneath my feet.
That passing on of heritage, of history, of family and love.
Or maybe it was just my mind playing tricks.
Maybe it was me trying to find meaning in the rainbow I saw.
I don’t know, maybe it was you, maybe it was you both.
And that’s where it’s confusing, right? –
the ambiguity, the chaos, the not knowing.
So now you’re gone, I just have to find beauty in the confusion.
After holding on to the thousands of memories I have.
Knowing that someday, when I pass, those memories will pass too.
A super dramatic set of bright headlights in the rain on black tarmac
A furtive look through the window at this concept of another life which keeps turning its head away
It won’t look back just forward at only one possibility
In the sea of infinite trillions there are
I can barely see it; it’s not like some super clear crystal ball, no
More like the fleeting reflection on one single little raindrop
Almost nothing, almost meaningless
Just that familiar ‘what if’ before it dissipates
And then another drop, yet more
Repeat to fade
I want to table the idea of destiny and its lack of guidance and will
Grey sky behind me in the photo, yet smiling, so sure
You in the photo with the sea behind you
It’s slipped away [moments]
I want to curtail the way my memories pass through my fingers like sand from some beach I went to so long ago
To be able to nurture them, immerse myself in them no matter how cold or warm
Put the most important ones in a box only I have the key to
Put it away somewhere safe
I want to stop wondering what if this and that
That cruel torment and rumination of a billion and one futures that may or may not have been
If a photo could tell a story, looking back I don’t imagine it would have been an epic novel
More of a short story, something immersive yes, but a short story still.
Three times the charm, your reputation supersedes you
Opening a book wide open so much the spine started to crack
Pages trembling and cracking from age
But I know you touched these pages, I can sense your history, your legacy, your DNA
I feel and sense time wrapping and warping from your years to mine
I feel the air change and tense as time folds over like a crashing wave
This was destiny, I hear you say
I look up to rain on window, cracked memory of a forest from so long ago I can’t even begin
My recollection is vivid then dull then empty
Perhaps
..this memory was a story I read
.. a page in your book
…a time you read it out loud
Perhaps
..your DNA enters mine
…your legacy entwines with mine
… future vs past vs future vs now
I have to close this book
I’m sorry but it’s just for now
I put a bookmark in there to remind me, I used an old ticket
Something to jog my memory when I have none
Something to hold on to when my mind becomes so fierce and fiery +dragonlike
I don’t know how many more years
Once upon a time in a split second a long time ago
Actually a fragment of a split second, so fast my mind couldn’t open the lens
This breeze went through me, through my bones & soul, I actually felt for a [split] moment the realness of that decision
It whistled through me and I swear time stopped so still just long enough – just just long enough I could breathe
It was pure [but I can’t explain], it was so powerful yet didn’t diminish
It wasn’t amber, no, more like that white light they say you see at [moment of] death, but alive, so alive
I felt every cell in my body [and mind] [and soul] light up like the biggest Christmas tree you could imagine [you couldn’t]
For just that moment which was a tiny speck in the universe’s time, which actually felt like I’d dropped out into another lifetime and spent eternity there then returned
I was the wind + sun + sky
I was the air through the tree
I was the vibration of the sound of wings beating, ice melting, clouds moving
I was the gap between the seconds on the clock
So still yet moving, static yet everywhere
+ it occurred to me
My eyes were wide wide open, looking at an entire valley of my being
where yesterdays+tomorrows+this today merged into sand, rocks
sea
Where one heartbeat of my billion erupted into clarity and polished chrome awarness
Oh it was glorious
I sat there feeling it, watching the sky, never intrepid
If only I could put it into words or bottle it up you’d see
you’d see.
Slowly giving in to the inevitable spiral up
Spiral down
That familiar dizziness working its way through my bones
It doesn’t really offer salvation but it threatens to
I saw something new today, when I looked zoomed-into-right-into-my-eye close
On the ground – kind of like gold or some kind of treasure
Maybe treasure I buried a long [very] long time ago
Or maybe it’s just a root. Maybe I’m digging & digging & digging
In utter futility, getting blunter and blunter until I realise there’s no payload to be had
I looked forward to going home one day. Just me in solitude – safe I guess you could say
Moving a toy plane around and around my room, resenting the freedom it had
Building another world within world to escape into, thinking maybe I could find some way to teleport into [but not out of] it
Considering if time travel could be real + where and when I’d go if so
A slow but frantic toing and froing, push/pull, pull/push, up/down, down/up. It’s inevitable I see
….you in sunlight, you were looking up slightly – I don’t think it was wavering, more like
…a temporary solace I could frame into one embrace, feet on grass, peak of summer, peak of high
….more and more quick decisions, ink into arm, letter after letter after letter
…..I often wonder when [where] what [if] could [really] if escape was real, frankly
was anything real [is]
I’m looking up at another plane but it’s one you’re on and it’s way way way out of reach and now
now I can just see contrails , white on blue [blue on white]
I can’t breathe I can only watch as it dissipates
That solace was only ever temporary, crystal-white delusional pump of adrenaline hope wishing.
Let me stop you [there] because right now I can’t focus on outside, on that fragmented rain that beats down [me down]
Helter skelter rushing pounding me into submission
I need a minute an hour a day. Who knows – maybe more [much more]
There’s no letup from the frantic fanatic fantastic thoughts plowing the land of my brain into famine
If I put a hand out to steady myself it might just pause and become static
& wilt
& stop
If I reach out to catch this feeling it might be heavy [too heavy], I think I might break
I’m worried if I bring this scene into focus like some bizarre director’s cut it will be real
Round & round the garden [like a, a what?]
Up, down, all around, shaken with the sound
Perhaps the next day normal service will resume & the sun’s rays will split me open until all the amber disintegrates
Perhaps I’ll be delayed a day or two. Leaves on the track; train stuck at the station
If I’m honest with you and let you peer inside at my mind like it’s a dolls’ house you might see odd shapes, colours, sounds. Bizarre sights like a sideshow
What would you think? Do you zoom in, macro focus, high-res?
From here it’s pixelated, fuzzy, kaleidoscope that’s gone wrong, left out in the rain too long [silly billy]
Put my hand over the end of it to cover up the light – perhaps what’s left is a couple of leaking shards of artificial sun trying to keep me awake [+ from drowning]
Is this a scene of control [of farce?] [of an ending?]
Sorry, time to go [we march on]